Other Things Worthy of Your Time
Boston College Application Essay
12/29/03
Something was different this Christmas, besides my lack of a material wish list and the fact my parents were back in their home state and spending the holidays with the family they’d been away from for the last decade. It was the first time that I’d been told by teachers and even classmates that the expression “Merry Christmas” isn’t used anymore, for the analogy to the religious event the holiday just might be referring to. Wouldn’t want to create any conflicting interests.
Why is it we try so hard to stimulate the minority but have developed a distaste in rooting for anything with lasting success or compelling influence? It’s hypocritical to jump on the bandwagon, unless it’s for the underdog. It’s unfashionable to involve yourself with anything too overly developed, so why not try something new? Even if it’s false, even if it goes against the foundation and beliefs of a country for the last 300 years.
Such is the manner of the freedom to worship these days. Just because you have the right to believe in God, certainly doesn’t mean you should.
The latest data (1989) shows that 84% of the country is Christian (56% Protestant, 28% Roman Catholic), 6% any other religion, and 10% of no religion. That means that the second-most prolific religious practice in the United States, is a lack of one. Judging by the standards of a college-prep atmosphere though, this wouldn’t seem like the case.
We’re made to believe that the Christian religion is just another sparse ideal circulating around with the rest, that it doesn’t hold any relevance, and that no one believes in it anymore anyway. Eighty-four percent of the documented population professes believing the stories of a Creator and His only begotten Son.
Society beyond the walls of high school—‘mature’ society—still places a certain degree of respect with the Christian Faith: it’s accepted that the only god whose name is capitalized is the sovereign God of the Christian religion. Many national holidays recognized are those meant to celebrate, originally, important events in Christian history—in our history. And television programming that becomes evermore lenient everyday on subject matter ‘suitable for the public’ still takes the time to edit dialogue using the God of the Christian religion’s name in vain.
Attending church is sold off as an adult activity. Places of worship seem to be getting older, and associated with it. Given, while it may be an internal habit by the churches themselves to resist adjusting to the times, it’s difficult to appeal to a generation that is equally resistant to a practice because it’s perceived as something time-consuming instead of possibly beneficial. So then, are moral standards becoming a trait reserved for adulthood? There was a time when you couldn’t just associate problems with youthful ignorance. Now we seem to rely on it.
It won’t be long though before today’s youth make up the ‘mature’ society, and if we have to start leaving things to common sense, hopefully it doesn’t get to the point where we forget what is sensible.
NOTES
22,000 people applied. 2,000 got in. I wasn't one of them.